


Thieves, Bounty Hunters, and the Art of Wrecking Your Kismesis

by muchlessvermillion



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adult Trolls Live On Alternia (Homestuck), Aftercare, Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Background Relationships, Biting, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming Inside, Dirty Talk, F/M, Femdom, Fighting, Knives, Papping, Penetrative Sex, Rough Sex, Scratching, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 13:01:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20243293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muchlessvermillion/pseuds/muchlessvermillion
Summary: Is it really a crime to break into your kismesis’s ship? The great big vessel doesn’t belong to Nepeta, obviously, but surely the law can understand the power of a good romantic gesture. And frankly, as a dashing rogue in the same vein as Troll Robin Hood (stealing from the high and giving to the low, all that good shit), isn’t it sort of Nepeta’s narrative duty to get her ass in the cargo hold of a violetblood’s hull and see what kind of havoc she can wreak?Nepeta Leijon, thief, romance expert, and many-quadranted stud, sneaks onto her kismesis's ship to have some fun -- because she's a thief, romance expert, and many-quadranted stud.Eridan doesn't know what hit him.





	Thieves, Bounty Hunters, and the Art of Wrecking Your Kismesis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NepetasDisciple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NepetasDisciple/gifts).

> My prompt was:  
I love this as either kismesis or matesprits!  
An AU would be fun to read as such, demonstuck, or something edgy if its more romantic inclined,  
If its more black, alternia bound stuff is cool, id love to see them as adults! Eridan being a Pirate, nepeta helping out lowbloods and stealing, or maybe following in her ancesters path and being part of a rebellion  
Either way, these are more or less suggestions!!!  

> 
> I hope this fits with what you wanted!

There are benefits to being flushed with the fiercest legislacerator Alternia has ever seen. 

Or… other benefits. Extra benefits. Benefits aside from Terezi’s laugh when she’s really pleased with herself, or roleplaying with her over trollian when they have to be apart for work, or her angular hip bones digging into Nepeta’s thighs while they curl up on the reclining platform. Those are benefits too, but not the ones Nepeta is using right now, and those would probably be benefits whether or not Terezi was a legislacerator, though Nepeta couldn’t quite picture what it would look like if she wasn’t.

Extra benefit #1: There are things Terezi knows, or things she can find out, documents and records she has access to, that Nepeta would have a much harder time getting on her own -- and Terezi is perfectly happy to share, as long as she knows what her matesprit plans to do with the information. 

Extra benefit #2: It’s almost impossible for Nepeta to get arrested, even in some strange world where her own power and speed aren’t enough to escape. And even if she were somehow arrested, it would be even more impossible for her to be sentenced. 

She’s utilizing both of these extra benefits now, by committing a crime in a port-side city that she knew to visit thanks to Terezi’s help. Well, sort of a crime. Only in technicality, really. After all, it isn’t like Ampora is going to press charges, much as he might end up blustering about it and threatening to call in a higher power. 

Is it really a crime to break into your kismesis’s ship? The great big vessel doesn’t _ belong _ to Nepeta, obviously, but surely the law can understand the power of a good romantic gesture. And frankly, as a dashing rogue in the same vein as Troll Robin Hood (stealing from the high and giving to the low, all that good shit), isn’t it sort of Nepeta’s narrative duty to get her ass in the cargo hold of a violetblood’s hull and see what kind of havoc she can wreak? Maybe she’ll even take something she can sell later. Eridan has all sorts of shiny baubles he carts around and resells in big ports, presumably picked up in his adventures as one of Alternia’s premiere bounty hunters. He’s highly requested. And especially known for his talent in bringing targets in alive.

(He’ll probably have her _ Wanted _ poster on his desk one of these days. She’d love to see him try, even if it’d be a sham and she’d be sure to “miraculously escape”, whether or not he somehow managed to get one over on her. Which he probably wouldn’t manage to do in the first place. Not in this. Eridan beats her at other things.)

The break-in goes like this:

Eridan spends perigrees at sea, sometimes, but even he has to stop to restock supplies and give his crew a chance to stretch their legs on dry land, before they become mutinous and put his head on a pike. Terezi had found out where he was going to dock next and passed it right along, so Nepeta could get there first. Eridan likes to do his own haggling and make his own deals, which means he and his retinue are down at the main market, where he’s probably annoying some poor shopkeep into taking a lower price, even though he has the caegars to burn. 

With their captain away, the rest of the crew is _ much _ more lax, more interested in searching out drinks and pretty trolls than intruders. Earlier, Nepeta spotted a set of them playing cards on deck. Others have abandoned the ship entirely for nearby bars, which they _ presumably _ have permission to do for shore leave, but sure does leave the whole thing more vulnerable. 

The few left actively guarding the way in are easy. Nepeta finds a big stone, carries it with her until she’s crouched behind a cargo crate from another vessel, and throws it with precision, so it splashes in the watery space next to the gangplank that bridges the gap from ship to dock. Close enough to wet the guards, too far for them to easily see what it was or where it came from. 

When they turn to look, all she has to do is launch herself over the top of the crate, land somewhere on the ship itself (anywhere, she isn’t picky), and crawl and shimmy her way up the rigging to do the rest. Hand over hand, digging in her claws for extra traction when she needs to. Rope, rope, sail, mast -- deck, towards the center, away from the crewmembers playing poker, shielded by a wooden railing that crossed the area. She’s flushed and self-satisfied by the time her bare feet touch down, silently, on the varnished wood. 

From here, there are two options. 

She can slip down to the cargo hold, among the caches of prizes her kismesis keeps, and wait until they’re well on their way to open water, when she would sneak back out and accost him on the main deck, under the eyes of the crew, before dragging him somewhere a little more private.

Or she can make her way into the Captain’s Quarters (sure to be locked, but Nepeta Leijon isn’t stopped by something so flimsy as the lack of a key), steal inside, and set herself up among Eridan’s private sanctuary… until they’re well on their way to open water, and the man himself retires to his rooms, stepping right into an ambush.

The deck lurches under her feet, just slightly, and makes the decision for her.

Boats are by no means her natural habitat. Neither is the wide-open expanse of the sea. The most water Nepeta feels truly comfortable in is a bathtub or a burbling forest river. A lake, maybe, if it’s clear enough to see to the bottom. The cargo hold could be fun for snooping and letting the crew see their captain squawk like a cluckbeast when he’s surprised, but it’s far below deck, where the swaying is worse and the windows nonexistent. The idea of sitting down there with her eyes trained on her watch while the walls rock makes Nepeta’s hair stand on end. She’s doing this for the wide-eyed affront on Eridan’s face when he sees her, the way he’ll be torn between rage that he doesn’t know what’s going on in his own vessel and reluctant awe of her, how part of him will swell with pride that she’s so good at what she does. All that will only be doubled by the knowledge that she’s in his rooms, where there’s an extra level of security and more to be embarrassed by. There’s no need to make herself more uncomfortable than she needs to be, just waiting for the right time to show herself. 

So it’s the Captain’s Quarters. 

So it’s Nepeta, light-footed, hurrying down the stairs and towards a room she’s spent time in before, crouching before the door with a lockpick between her fingers and another between her teeth, guiding the rods like she’s performing surgery until the door clicks open. 

She slips inside, and locks the door again behind her, because there’s no way a fighter like Eridan wouldn’t be on-edge if he realized it had been locked when he left and wasn’t now. The room is very much like it was the last time she was here; soft, posh, full of expensive things he doesn’t really need. Nepeta takes great delight in running her fingers along all the bottles on his shelves, thumbing through the oldest of his books, just for the knowledge that she’s touched them and left a bit of herself behind, even if she’s not taking or breaking anything yet. And then she plants herself in Eridan’s expansive wardrobe to wait, her carefully-wound pocket watch in one hand and a sharp, curved knife in the other.

It’s some time before the rest of the crew is clamoring back on the ship, making so much noise that Nepeta’s sure almost none of them could last a day as a proper hunter. But she’s planned for this, factored in the time they would take when she chose how to make her approach. And Nepeta _ is _ a proper hunter, so she hasn’t gotten too antsy to sit still, can breathe slow and steady and wait for her oblivious prey to arrive. 

It may be some time still before Eridan decides he’s done enough shouting for the night and returns to his quarters, probably long before he plans to sleep, to write logs and letters (there’s the start of one to her, on the desk, which she had read, and the beginnings of others to Karkat and Sollux and Feferi, which she had not -- well, not much, anyway), to read books and go over his ledgers. She can wait for that, too, as long as he doesn’t take too long. 

If he does, she’s going to find him and bring him back here herself. She’s got a schedule to keep, after all. 

But Nepeta’s lucky sometimes, for all that luck is Vriska’s thing. She doesn’t have to move at all. 

“Imbeciles,” Eridan’s muttering as he shoulders his way through the doorway, tucking the key chained around his neck back into his shirt, alongside a gem so shiny it makes Nepeta’s eyes go wide. She watches him from the slit in his closet doors, and quiets her breathing. She slips her watch back into its pocket. “Fuckin’ imbeciles,” Eridan continues, as the door slams behind him. He makes a beeline to his desk, sweeping papers aside until he finds a fat notebook, which he opens with ferocity and begins flipping through. He’s bent over slightly, his back to her, and Nepeta grins in a way that splits her face as she slowly, carefully slips out of the wardrobe. 

Eridan takes such good care of his nice things. It’s hilarious when she’s rearranging the books on his shelf to get him to bitch. It’s annoying when he sniffs about it for weeks after she claws his pants up beyond repair. Now, it’s convenient. Neatly pressed shirts, nicely oiled hinges. The doors don’t creak. 

Nepeta’s practiced footsteps don’t creak, either. She’s stalked bigger prey through rougher terrain, kept monsters four times her size from hearing her feet on brittle fallen leaves. And he’s still muttering to himself under his breath, something silly about past sales and not honoring promises.

To Eridan’s credit, he does notice her before she gets all the way there, tenses all along his spine and begins to turn. But Nepeta is too fast and too ready, and before he can draw another breath she’s got her knife to his throat from behind, deliberately keeping her body from his by inches. She can smell the fear on him, the righteous indignation, can practically feel him deciding whether his crew will arrive fast enough to keep his throat from being slit if he screams. She lets him stew in it for a couple of long seconds. And then she speaks.

“Captain Ampurra,” she says, and she’s sure her smile is evident, growing even as she talks. “What’s got you all heated?” 

“Nepeta,” he breathes, and his shoulders relax, relief for an instant before the pitch blush of his anger can creep back in. He grabs at her wrist with a sharp, cold hand, confident enough that she’s not actually about to cut him open (not at the throat, at least.) “What the _ hell _are you doing here? 

Now Nepeta can press up against him, rub along his back and tuck her face into his neck so he can feel her grin, her knife still fixed against his skin. She’s just a little taller than him now, after an adolescence where he began sprouting early like a skinny weed and she stayed stocky and small, and it’s still satisfying every time she notices it. 

“What, a girl can’t pay her favfurite kismesis a visit?” 

“Only kismesis,” he corrects. “Or if I’m not, you better be fuckin’ tellin’ me beforehand. And no. Not without _ arranging _it.”

“But I _ did _ arrange it!” she protests, just to be a bother. “Clearly, or I wouldn’t be here!” 

“I meant with _ me_, you feral meowbeast, I know you don’t got a grasp on the general rules of high society like I do, but this is basic stuff and I don’t know how you can possibly be this _ dense_. What the fuck are you doin’ in my private quarters?” Despite his protests, Eridan is still in her grip, his hand steady on her wrist like that could possibly stop her if she wanted to do anything with the knife. His grip is firm, but he’s not pulling at her, or kicking backwards and ducking down, or delivering any other ill-advised moves she knows he can do. Eridan fights dirty for such a priss. It’s part of his charm.

“Paying you a visit, stupid,” she repeats, and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the webbing of his earfins. 

“Yeah, I got that part,” he says, but his voice is a little breathier. “_Why_?”

“Do I need an excuse?” she purrs, and uses the hand that’s not holding her knife to tweak the jut of his hip, which makes him twitch. “Maybe I missed you.” She can feel him relax minutely against her, which isn’t what she wants, not yet -- she likes to earn it. “Or maybe I just happened to be in town and wanted to see if your security still sucked!” 

Eridan growls from deep in his thorax, and now he _ does _ move, throwing an elbow up and back to catch her in the nose, tightening his grip on her arm and twisting to try and get the blade from his jugular. Nepeta tastes a hint of copper.

She drops the knife. She doesn’t need it right now. Maybe she will later. Eridan pushes the advantage, whirling around while her blade clatters to the floor and swinging at her with a fist.

Eridan throws a pretty good punch, usually. He knows what he’s doing, and he wears all those rings, which can really do some fucking damage. But he’s mid-turn and off-balance, and Nepeta steps out of range. He flails before he catches himself, just a little, and Nepeta rams her head directly into his stomach.

“_Ow_,” Eridan complains, as his back knocks up against the hard wooden corner of his desk. “This is _not _ a good place to spar, you _ asshole_, I’ve got a whole upper deck for that. You’re gonna destroy my rooms.” 

“You started it,” Nepeta says, even though he didn’t.

“You came at me with a _ knife_,” Eridan responds, and delivers a sharp kick to her knee that makes her let go. 

“I couldn’t help it,” she responds, a little bit out of breath. She knows there’s blood on her teeth, from where he hit her, but she also knows slamming into the desk like that had to hurt worse. “You’re a furry stabbable purrson.” 

“Gee,” Eridan says, “thanks.” He steps towards her, hands flexing like he’s looking to grab, and Nepeta drops to the floor, sweeping her leg out to knock Eridan down with her. She even has the foresight to bat the knife out of the way before he falls, because she’s nice like that. He’s too practiced in catching himself to go down hard, but he goes down nonetheless, stopped on his knees and elbows, perpendicular to the glossy wood. 

It’s a good look for him, really, until he rolls towards her and lashes out. But Nepeta’s still on a schedule and she wants to save the real sparring for a time when they’ve got all the space they need and more hours to spend, so she grabs at his hands and pushes with the full force of her weight behind her, until he’s on his back under her and she’s got his wrists pinned beneath her fingers. 

“Hey,” she says, and licks the blood from her split lip. 

“It ain’t fair to start that shit when you aren’t intendin’ on lettin’ me finish it, Nep.”

“I plan on letting you finish it!” she protests, forgetting for a moment to be sultry about it. “Soon, even! Just… not right meow. Right meow, I have offur plans.”

“Can you at least stop with the stupid meowbeast puns?”

“Nope!” Nepeta says, though he must have known the answer before he asked. “Can do something else, though.” 

“What’s that?” Eridan asks, the beleaguered expression he’s fighting to keep on his face entirely undermined by the way he’s looking at her. 

In answer, Nepeta leans down to kiss him something fierce. He kisses back, like she knew he would, soothing the cut on her mouth with his cold tongue like an apology. His hands are moving under hers, ever so slightly, not enough to even try getting out, but enough to feel the strength of her grip. 

He thinks he’s so subtle. Which is stupid, because she’s tied him up properly, looped his hands to the ornate wooden headboard of his concupescent platform so he couldn’t turn to face her and held him up by the hips, saw how he absently touched the marks left behind under his sleeves in the nights that followed. He’s an idiot if he thinks he can hide anything from her by now, but she tightens her hold on him anyway, because she likes the way he tries not to moan.

He always makes an attempt at dignified and stoic, at first. It makes it so much sweeter when he’s dissolving under her mouth later, flying apart but still pushing back, trusting her like you trust a kismesis but trying not to go too soft in case she thinks it’s pitiable. Sometimes she wonders if it’s for her benefit, or if he really thinks it’s fooling anyone. 

(Joke’s on him, anyway. Nepeta can hate him plenty and still like how vulnerable he is when he’s all wide-eyed and gasping, can see him go limp for her and still remember all the times he’s proved himself a formidable opponent. She’s multifaceted.) 

Nepeta pulls her body away from his just enough to rip his shirt open, buttons scattering to all four corners of the room. He bites at her jaw in response, hissing. 

“That shirt cost more than your whole damn wardrobe, Nep.” 

“You have _ more_,” she tells him. “I was just in your closet. I know all your secrets.” With one hand still pushing his wrists flat to the floor, she scoots down to bite at his newly-exposed collarbone. He thrashes under her, and only manages to press his chest further into her mouth 

“Not all of ‘em,” he mutters, and she feels the press of a knife to her side. She twists her head to see. Eridan is inexplicably holding the handle of her own discarded weapon between his purple-painted toes, his leg splayed out and then curled up over her back. Despite herself, Nepeta bursts into snorting laughter. “Fuck you!” Eridan says, immediately, pushing harder so she can feel the edge of the blade even through her shirt. “You gonna let me up, or am I gonna have to do somethin’ drastic? This ain’t an ideal position, but I’d wager this blade is sharp enough that it doesn’t really matter, does it?” It doesn’t, he’s right. But that’s not what he wants. 

“That’s a mew one,” Nepeta says, giggling into his neck. He snarls in response, a sound that cuts off abruptly when she takes his chin with one firm hand, arm placed just right to put the barest hint of pressure on his throat. “Do you _ want _ me to get off of you?” she asks, squeezing his face a little too tight. “You gonna cut me with that knife, Eridan? You gonna get me to roll off you and then, what, keep fighting me? In your _ respiteblock,_ with all your fancy, breakable things, instead of somewhere we could really get into it?” She nudges his legs with her own until they part slightly, and then pushes a knee between them. “Does that sound fun right meow? _ Or _ are you going to drop the knife, and let me show you what else we could be doing with our time? Beclaws, purrsonally, I think a better use for _ this _ room might be me touching you until you forget yourself and spread your legs and let me _ fuck you _ so hard and so good you don’t remember how to talk, and scream so loud your whole crew finds out their fearsome bounty hunter captain is a bulgeslut that puts up a good front but really just wants a wanted criminal to bend him over.” 

There’s a moment of silent tension, while she waits. She’s pretty sure Eridan has stopped breathing. 

The knife falls to the floor with a clank. 

“Good choice, purretty boy,” Nepeta says, putting emphasis on the pun just to make him cringe. She grabs a handful of Eridan’s hair and uses it to leverage him into a kiss, swallowing his moan the moment it starts. She’s pretty sure any wiggling he does now is going to be for show, so she drops his wrists for the time being and sits back on her haunches between his legs, yanking him with her by his hair. She keeps kissing him, even as her newly-freed hand snakes down his body and cups his crotch. It doesn’t feel like he’s fully unsheathed yet, but he’s getting there, and she’s not far behind. His knees fall open a little wider, and she’s fairly certain it’s not even on purpose. She rewards him by kneading with her fingers, right on the good side of too hard, into where his nook is blocked by two layers of fabric. His hips shudder in little aborted thrusts that he’s trying not to make too obvious, and she knows that by the time she’s done here, she’s going to make him push back into her bulge all on his own, show her how much he wants it. 

She lets go of his hair so she can yank her tank top up and as off as she can get it with a palm still between his legs, and he reaches up to squeeze her rumblespheres and the hard muscled line of her abdomen. (Eridan loves how strong he is, she knows that. Probably dreams about it. He trains hard, he fights hard, but he still can’t manage to get himself on the level of the sheer heft of an oliveblood hunter. He’s still _ good_, though, quick with a sword and quick with his tongue, has earned his reputation, so she’s certain the only sleep he’s losing over her musculature is the kind where he wakes up with a hand between his legs.) 

Like he knows what she’s thinking, Eridan flicks at one of her grubscars to refocus her. And, well, who is she to refuse a request like that? Nepeta bites his mouth and wraps a hand around the curve of one of his wavy horns, jerking his head to the side and getting her mouth on the vulnerable expanse of his neck. 

Those horns make for fantastic handles; she knows from experience. She’s got a plan here, tonight, but next time she might get him between her thighs and use his horns for what they’re good for. It’s always a gamble, with those needlelike seadweller teeth, but Nepeta’s a gambling sort of woman, and Eridan respects and likes her too much to actually bite. 

Not to mention how much he’d miss her bulge if he got rid of it. 

She leaves sucking kisses down his throat, tooth marks and rising purple bruises, and though he makes a couple of token protests about how visible they are, he’s pushing his skin into her teeth instead of away. He’s got one hand on one of her heavy rumblespheres and the other making a valiant attempt to push her pants down the curve of her hips. 

She’s a good kismesis, so she obliges, wiggling the waistband low enough to make room for her thick green bulge. She’d left her boxers at home for this, because it’s not like she _ needs _ them, even if her pants are probably going to get wrecked. She has more pants. It’s not even hard to get more pants.

Nepeta’s nook is clenching hotly between her thighs, and if they had a little more time she might have him eat her out, but there’s nothing wrong with saving something to look forward to on date night. For now, she redirects her kisses from his marked-up throat to his swollen lips, palming one of his smaller rumblespheres and flicking her tongue into his mouth. 

“Gonna take your pants off for me?” Nepeta asks him, when she pulls back for a breath. “Beclaws I remember the last time I shredded a pair, you were _ way _ too mad. Wouldn’t want a repeat of that.” This is an obvious lie. She loves making him mad. He grumbles at her, and makes an effort to grip her hips and haul her into his lap instead of answering, which is hilarious. She manhandles him right back, pulling him until he’s straddling her hips instead.

“Stop lookin’ so smug,” Eridan huffs, despite the way his bulge is pushing against his fly. 

“I can’t,” Nepeta says. “This is my default expression.” 

“It is _ not_,” Eridan argues. He’s squirming against her, trying to get friction on his nook and bulge from her thighs. 

“That would be easier without any pants, you know,” Nepeta points out, tracing one clawed finger along his earfin. He shivers, biting down on his lower lip, and lets out a shaky exhale. Then he stumbles to his feet, cursing under his breath the whole while. 

“Fuck you,” Eridan says, as he undoes his belt and pushes his pants and boxers down over his ass. 

“I’m _ trying,_” she responds, and her shit-eating grin only grows when he groans in response. 

“I can’t believe I think you’re hot,” he says, as his pants fall to the floor. Despite this, his purple bulge is squirming against his own leg, and his thighs are clenched so tightly together that he _ must _ be trying to keep himself from leaking visibly. “I can’t believe I’m datin’ you, or that I let you touch me on the regular. I must be outta my damn mind. It’s the only explanation.” Nepeta rolls her eyes. It’s hard to take him seriously when she knows just how much he likes her, or hates her, or likes/hates her. Whatever, it all boils down to enjoying her company. 

“And yet!” Nepeta says, cheerful, and reaches up to pull him back towards her. “Here you are.” 

“Here I am,” Eridan repeats. His eyes are dark with how much he wants it, his legs splayed across her hips. Her bulge makes itself friendly with his on instinct, and when they twine together he makes a bitten-back noise that will turn into a full moan any moment. Nepeta reaches between his thighs, traces one finger, so lightly, over the fluttering opening of his nook, just to feel it clench around nothing.

“Here you are!” she says again. “What do I do, with a lapful of my dumbshit kismesis?” He claws marks down her shoulder, and she presses her hips into his harder. 

“You seemed pretty set on somethin’ earlier." 

“Wanna remind me what that is?” Nepeta asks, showing all her teeth. “I think I’ve forgotten.” 

“No,” Eridan says, a flush rising on his cheeks, but his hips twitch, his hands tighten on her shoulders.

“Aw, damn,” Nepeta says. “Guess we’ll have to figure something else out.” 

“Ughhhhh,” Eridan groans, dropping his head against her collarbone. “Why do you gotta be like this?”

“You love it,” Nepeta says.

“I _ hate _ it.”

“Same thing,” she responds, dipping the very tip of her finger into his dripping nook. It’s wet down his thighs. He moves back against her, and she snatches the finger back so fast he near-shouts in frustration. “So. What was I gonna do with you?”

Next time, she thinks, adding to her already long mental list. After movies and sparring and getting him on his knees, she’s going to blow his bulge _ and _ his mind. 

“Fuck me,” Eridan grits out, between his teeth. “You were gonna fuck me.” 

“Oh!” Nepeta responds, doing her best to sound even a little bit surprised. It doesn’t work well. “Right! Silly me.” 

Eridan has an ornate concupiscent platform in his room, along with the nicest recuperacoon you can install on a moving ship. It’s got silk sheets in a pale lilac (honestly, it’s like he’s asking for that to stain), and carvings on the posts. Nepeta had torn his blanket to bits the last time she’d been here, but he’d clearly replaced it since. 

She shifts him up against her, and then manages to pull them both to their feet. He’s still protesting when she shoves a hand in the middle of his chest and sends him falling back towards the platform. They’re too far for him to land in the middle, which is just what she wants. The top of him lands on the cushy mattress, face up. His bottom half misses, and he scrabbles to get purchase with his feet, before she gets him by the thighs and spreads his legs wide to fit herself between them. He goes still, hands digging into cloth on either side of him.

Maybe this time Eridan will shred his own sheets. 

His shirt is still on his shoulders, though split down the middle, showing off the necklace that dangles to his rumblespheres. His hair is mussed, and he’s got bruises up one side of his throat. She knows the asymmetry will piss him off, later. 

Best of all, he’s totally naked from the waist down, and she’s still wearing a pulled up tank top and pulled down pants. He’s a mess, but when she grins at him, he grins right back, and it doesn’t fade. There’s a challenge in it, which is how she likes his smiles best. 

She pulls him off the platform a little more, just to see him squirm and dig his fingers in. And then she rolls her hips forward and lets her bulge press into where he’s ice cold and dripping. Nepeta's bulge is thick, but smaller at the tip, and it stretches him wide for her slowly, as she fits her hands over his hips and leans down to kiss him until he forgets to bite his noises back. 

Her bulge is halfway in when she stops, leaning back to look at him 

“What’re you waitin’ for?” Eridan demands, impatient as ever. His eyes are wet and going glassy, so it’s hard to feel intimidated, even with his strong arms hooked tight around her neck.

“You,” Nepeta responds, her voice gone raspy. 

“_What_?” he asks, sharp. 

“I want you to do the rest. Come on, purretty boy. Push down. Take it.” 

He rolls his eyes at her, or tries to. But either he’s too turned on to argue or he’s tired of her teasing him, because he does it. He shoves his hips back against her, and takes the last half of her bulge into his nook.

He looks at her with triumph on his face, for a moment, until Nepeta lets loose, and then it’s all he can do to pant and moan, mouth open, as her tentabulge winds within him and her hips pump to give it extra momentum. He’s gone sweetly lax like she was hoping, now, like all the focus he has left is going to clenching his nook around her and tightening his legs behind her back so she can’t stop fucking him. He doesn’t even talk, just makes punched out little noises every time she fucks into him, and digs his claws into the meat of her shoulders, and lets her pull him against her by his hips. His bulge is stuck between their stomachs, with not much in the way of sustained friction, but he doesn’t seem to care as long as she doesn’t leave him empty. 

It’s not as if she’s planning on going anywhere, so that’s fine for her.

She tells him how pretty he is, how good he takes her, how next time she should tie him down again in her rooms and see how many noises she can wring out of him over the course of a full night. She tells him how smart and deadly he is, how strategic, how much she hates him and wants him and respects him. It’s sometimes easier to be sincere, like this, when they can pretend he doesn’t remember. He does, though, and they both know it.

“Grab the bucket,” Eridan pants, finally, and it’s clearly hard for him to get the words out between moans. 

“Don’t need one,” Nepeta responds, not much better off herself. 

“Excuse me?” Eridan asks, and she responds by moving her hips faster between his widespread thighs. They’ve talked about this outside of sex, she knows he likes it, she knows she’s allowed, she knows that he knows what to say if he doesn’t want it. He’ll probably still squawk indignantly about it for the sake of appearances, but she takes a moment to really look at him as she hikes one of his legs up over her shoulder. He stares back, sucks his lower lip into his mouth, and pulls her closer with the leg still hooked around her waist. 

That’s all the invitation Nepeta needs. She gets her hand on his chilly bulge, traps it between her palm and his own flat stomach, and kisses him hard as she loses all control. Her bulge thrashes in him wildly, because she’s too close to focus, but he’s got it just as bad, moaning wetly into her mouth as she works him hard.

When Nepeta comes, it’s like a lightning strike, her body going stiff, her bulge standing straight. Another movement of her hips and it’s over, emptying every bit of the genetic fluid she’s holding into Eridan.

When Eridan comes, it’s like waves on a shore. Ripple after ripple. He can’t seem to stop moving, twitching, as he releases over his chest and onto her hands. 

Afterwards, she leans over him as her bulge withdraws back into her sheath, breathing hard. She presses kisses over his face, on his cheeks and his forehead and the sweaty lock of his hair that’s hanging over his eye, on his eyelids and his nose and his mouth. She pets him while he shakes, holds him until he’s able to speak again.

“Okay,” he says, when the power of speech returns. “Not that I’m complainin’, for once, but this plan of yours was stupid as hell. You’re trapped on my damn ship, now, Nep. You ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

“Mm.” Nepeta pulls back from him to stretch her shoulders. She’s going to have claw marks down the length of her spine for weeks. She’s thrilled. “Do you wanna bet?” 

“What?” Eridan asks. Nepeta pulls her pants back up her hips, her shirt back down, and gives him a two-fingered wave as she makes her way towards his door, her eyes on him the whole time. He jumps from the platform and grabs for his pants, hopping in an entirely undignified way to get them on despite the genetic material running down his legs. 

Nepeta reaches the door just as Eridan gets himself zipped up.

He chases after her. He wouldn’t be him if he didn’t. With his hair a mess and his wrecked shirt framing either side of his torso, marks down his throat and on his chest, his shoes abandoned in the room, he follows her as she darts up the stairs and out onto the main deck.

There is, of course, the crew, who all freeze in place like they’re not sure what to do with this. It’s not as if they wouldn’t _ understand _ \-- this is a group of people that live together, obviously sometimes one of them will get fucked up by a kismesis within public view. It’s perfectly normal. But Nepeta knows for a fact that they’re not used to seeing their captain so disheveled, even if they’re not scandalized by it. They’re probably weighing what they can say without being assigned all the grossest jobs for the next few perigrees. It might be safest to say nothing at all. 

Eridan freezes for an instant, too, flushing up to his ears 

Nepeta uses this as anyone would; to dip him parallel to the deck and kiss him senseless in the fading moonlight. 

“It was good to see you,” she says, when she pulls back. He gapes at her for a moment, licking his lips. Most of the crew is doing a shitty job at pretending to do their work. 

“You’re still seein’ me,” Eridan responds. “I know you can’t swim for shit.” 

“Well, you’re right about one thing.” Nepeta says, as she wraps her fist around the chains dangling from his throat. And then she drops him. The chains break as he falls to the floor, and the necklaces come away in her hand. “I _ can’t _ swim fur shit.” There’s noise from overhead, and a rope ladder drops. Right on time. Nepeta grabs it with both legs and an arm, waving at her kismesis with the hand that’s gleaming with jewelry and his personal cabin key. “Next time let’s do a real date! I can do, like, whenefur, so feel furee to show up and get me back for this!” Eridan scrambles to his feet and into fighting position, but he’s not quite quick enough.

“I’m going to change the lock!” Eridan shouts up at her, as the airship above them pulls away, taking Nepeta with it 

“I’ll just pick it again!” she promises, and watches him until he’s just a speck. 

Then she climbs the ladder. Well, she half climbs the ladder -- it’s being pulled up into the open belly of the ship at the same time, hauling her higher and higher. When she’s finally in the cool, metallic interior of the airship, the bottom panel closing behind her, the first thing she sees is her moirail looking deeply unimpressed.

“I would like it noted that I’m surprised this even worked,” Equius says, his arms crossed over his broad chest. “How you managed to chart their intended progression accurately enough to know where the ship would be at this time is beyond me, even as an excellent navigator myself. Had they changed courses, you would have been udderly marooned.” 

“But they didn’t!” Nepeta sing-songs, leaning into his slightly damp side. “And you picked me up right where I asked, because you’re the beeeest.” Equius huffs loudly through his nose.

“Yes, well,” he says. “I would hardly be an acceptable moirail if I abandoned you there. Though I can’t say I approve of what you’re doing with your apparent prowess in… scheming.”

“I do love me a good scheme,” Nepeta says, and cups his face. “C’mon, you stinky hoofbeast, don’t be grumpy. It’s not like Eridan would’ve really hurt me, even if I _ was _ stuck there.” 

“I suppose,” Equius responds, his eyelids fluttering as he leans into her touch. “I cannot help that I--” He goes entirely still, and all his words die on his tongue. “Nepeta,” Equius says, his voice strangled. “Your hand is purple.” 

“Oh,” Nepeta says.

“And you are _ touching me with it_.” 

“Whoops?” Nepeta offers. Equius doesn't respond. "I'm furry sorry?" she tries. Equius takes a massive breath, suddenly becoming much more damp, and goes for his pile of towels with the speed of a man possessed.

Very kindly, Nepeta waits until he’s grabbed one before she starts laughing herself to pieces.

Much later, when she’s picked herself up from the floor and the stitch in her side has subsided, she examines her haul. The key is going to be useless soon, but makes a truly pawsome souvenir. The jeweled necklace she’d snagged is pristine, aside from where she snapped its dainty gold chain, a massive jewel in seadweller purple serving as the centerpiece. It would be easy enough to fix. Not convenient for her to wear, with what she does, but… 

Maybe she won’t sell the jewelry after all. 

Nepeta’s humming to herself as she goes to join Equius in the pilot’s area. 

She has a feeling she’ll be seeing more of Eridan soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
